


Something About You

by halahan



Category: ATEEZ (Band)
Genre: (omg they were roommates), Childhood Friends, Domestic Fluff, Domestic Shenanigans, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Half-Elf!Mingi, Kissing, Love Confessions, M/M, Modern Fantasy, One Shot, Roommates, Serpent!Hwa, Slice of Life, Slow Burn, alcohol use (light), human!yunho, illustrated story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-15
Updated: 2020-05-15
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:29:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24078268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/halahan/pseuds/halahan
Summary: “So, how long have you two been together?” Mingi asks, all smiles and good-intentioned eyes.“Seonghwa and I aren’t a couple,” Yunho explains with more calmness than Seonghwa thinks he would’ve had, “but we’ve been roommates for what… Four? Five months?” He counts on his fingers. “Yeah, five in like a week.”Or the one in which Yunho and Seonghwa find each other again in the city after many years.
Relationships: Jeong Yunho/Park Seonghwa
Comments: 5
Kudos: 87





	Something About You

**Author's Note:**

> this story is a collaboration with [miinfai](http://twitter.com/miinfai) in the context of the [#atz_drawastory challenge](https://twitter.com/shibermon/status/1237835691108847616)!! the concept of it was simple, pair an artist (tracy) and a writer (me) together to write and illustrate a story revolving around ateez, so this fic is my part, and here's the art she did: [♡](https://twitter.com/miinfai/status/1261332498849705984)  
>  _spoiler alert! if u don't want spoilers, read this first, i linked the art again in the ending notes!_
> 
> tracy and i paired up and it took us only a couple minutes to settle on our initial plan: yunhwa, modern fantasy, _domestic_.  
> this was so fun and exciting, and im so happy with the results!!

Yunho barely catches the sauce with his finger as it starts to drip down his chin, earning him a scoff from Seonghwa. He furrows his brows and after wiping his lips with the back of his hand he looks at the older, fake hurt on his face.

“What? Ashamed of me?” Yunho teases. “You should be used to it by now.”

Seonghwa rolls his eyes, but there’s a smile playing at the corner of his mouth. “And I wouldn’t have it any other way” he starts replying, although Yunho doesn’t hear it, maybe because he wasn’t talking so loud but most probably because a loud voice interrupts him.

“Jeong Yunho!” A tall redhead calls, walking towards them with a big smile.

“Mingi?” Yunho calls back as he turns around and notices the guy, greeting him as soon as he’s made his way towards their table. “Didn’t expect to see you here!” Yunho says with a smile as big as Mingi’s – and maybe more but it’s not like Seonghwa has an unbiased opinion on the matter – he gestures to his friend to take a sit with them around the grill, the sole source of warmth in the cold evening.

“Just wanted some barbecue after a long day,” Mingi explains simply, accepting the invitation, then he turns to Seonghwa. “Hi, I’m Song Mingi!”

It takes Seonghwa a second to realize he’s being addressed, but he quickly introduces himself back with a curt bow. Upon hearing his name, Mingi’s face lights up and his mouth forms an ‘o’ shape.

“The infamous Park Seonghwa!” He laughs, “Good to finally meet you! Heard a lot about you.”

Seonghwa raises a brow in Yunho’s direction but the only thing he gets back is a shrug. Mingi doesn’t press further on the subject, so he and Yunho fall into comfortable conversation.

The older doesn’t mind, he continues to cook and eat the meat, occasionally putting pieces of it in Yunho’s bowl, which the latter eats without thinking twice about it.

The classmates’ conversation revolves around the contents of their classes, the parts of the new choreography they’re having trouble with, and all sorts of anecdotes about the few classes they don’t actually share.

Mingi must realize Seonghwa has been quiet most of the time – aside from the few one-worded answers he gives Yunho when the latter turns to him – because he shifts towards him and looks back between Yunho and him, a curious look in his eyes.

“So, how long have you two been together?” he asks, all smiles and good-intentioned eyes.

Seonghwa stops chewing on his meat for a second and can’t help but look at Yunho, who is looking back at him with round eyes, before he turns back to his friend, chuckling.

“Seonghwa and I aren’t a couple,” he explains with more calmness than Seonghwa thinks he would’ve had, “but we’ve been roommates for what… Four? Five months?” He counts on his fingers. “Yeah, five in like a week.”

Mingi understands his mistake quickly but he feels no embarrassment – or at least none that shows on his face, not even a hint of red at the tip of his pointy ears – and Seonghwa supposes it has to do with his apparent elven lineage, as they’re known to be very unapologetic, especially wood and sun elves which Seonghwa suspects Mingi to be related to judging by his golden skin and warm-toned hair.

Yunho continues, making Seonghwa focus back on the topic. “But we’ve known each other far longer than that, actually I can’t even remember a time when we didn’t.”

The words make Seonghwa feel warm, more than the grill does.

Yunho is referring to their childhood, when they used to be neighbors.

  
  


Fifteen or so years ago, little Seonghwa came home from his first day of ‘real school’ like his mother had said, and spotted a blurry shape moving towards him very fast, soon hitting him hard and making him fall to the side, a body that felt heavy on top of his.

“Yunho!” A voice called, tainted a mix of anger and worry – a mother’s voice.

His own mother said his name but Seonghwa was too out of it to pay attention to her. The human that had run into him – Yunho, apparently – stood up really fast and almost fell again before his mother caught his arm and started scolding him.

Seonghwa got up too and assured his mother he was fine, his scales having protected him. Yunho must have been told to apologize because he looked at Seonghwa with teary eyes and mumbled a couple of apologies, his chin starting to quiver. Seonghwa’s mother exchanged a few very polite words with Yunho’s, something about a barbecue in the Jeongs’ garden, and before they knew it, Yunho and Seonghwa became best friends.

Seonghwa remembers one evening, the latest his parents had let him stay at Yunho’s, where the two of them were sitting in the grass under a tree. Seonghwa was 8. Yunho asked him a question he seemed to always have kept to himself – probably one he’d been taught not to ask by his parents – he looked at Seonghwa with the usual curiosity in his eyes, but his fingers were fidgeting with the edge of his tee.

“Hyung why do you have scales?”

Seonghwa hadn’t been surprised. It wasn’t the first time he’d been asked this – and surely it wouldn’t even be close to the last – but this time the person asking wasn’t afraid, he wasn’t disgusted or mocking, he was just curious. Just Yunho.

“Do you know what serpents are?”

“Mh, not really.”

“The word comes from the french for ‘snake’,” Seonghwa continued, repeating what his father had told him when Seonghwa had asked him why his mother didn’t have any scales like theirs, “I’m a serpent, which means I’m kind of like snakes. I have scales. I have them on my throat, my shoulders, my legs, and you can’t see them but they cover a good part of my ribs too!”

Yunho had let out an impressed sound, and suddenly he had a trillion more questions, to which Seonghwa answered – “I do have fangs but they’re not very sharp yet, I’m too young.” “No I don’t hiss like snakes, I don’t eat mice either.” “You’ve never heard of us because it’s pretty rare… They do teach about us in middle school, though!” “Yunho you can’t just ask why I have arms!” – at least as best as he could, until he got sent home for it was getting late.

Seonghwa knew he would remember that night and cherish it his whole life, as it was the first time he hadn’t been looked at like a beast or like a circus animal by someone outside of his family. During all Seonghwa’s stay in this small town, it was also the only time.

When the young serpent entered middle school, the change of going from innocent children frowning at his scales to mean kids calling him a ‘snake’, a ‘scale freak’ and a ‘bite-monster’ was rough. As Yunho was a year younger, Seonghwa didn’t even have him by his side. He could see him after, and on the weekends, but as time passed by he got more homework, and less motivation to leave his room, his classmates’ comments always at the back of his mind.

He hoped for it to end soon, and knew that once the year was over he would have Yunho with him again. Except when that time came, he didn’t, because when Yunho entered middle school, Seonghwa’s mother got a promotion and the Parks moved to Seoul.

Ever since, Seonghwa hadn’t heard word of the human. Looking back, Seonghwa realizes that Yunho’s parents might have been more wary of their scaly neighbors than their kind and cheerful son.

Seonghwa had missed him, all alone in the big city, but he also felt better because the city folk seemed more welcoming of people like him – he even met a few others of his kind, creating a good friendship with a serpent in his high school called Choi San.

  
  


“Yeah! I came up here for studies, I didn’t even know hyung had moved here all those years back!” Yunho’s voice suddenly pulls Seonghwa back in the present. “One day I was minding my own business, making it through freshman year with sore muscle, the other I was running into my childhood best friend,” _Again_ , Seonghwa recalls, “and like, what… Two weeks later? I was moving in with him, taking his roommates’ spot after the guy – Hongjoong hyung, a great guy by the way – went to live with his boyfriend.”

“What, just like that?” Mingi says, apparently captivated by the story. Since Yunho had started talking, they had all ordered more meat, Mingi joining their table for good.

Yunho chuckles with a nod. “I was actually looking to move since my neighbor was having mad loud sex at least twice a week… And like good for him but I didn’t exactly want to hear all these obscenities while having breakfast or watching a movie.” They all laugh as Yunho tells the tale of the time it happened while he had his mom on the phone. “So obviously when hyung complained about having to find someone quickly because the rent was not something he could pay alone, I jumped on the opportunity. And since we’d been friends for so many years it’s not like I was moving in with a stranger.”

Yunho looked at Seonghwa with one of those kind smiles that made the serpent feel weird. He smiled back before diverting his eyes, Mingi’s rant about his own roommate taking the attention away.

* * *

Yunho wonders if he’s told Mingi too much. The half-elf didn’t seem to care that Seonghwa was a serpent – maybe because Mingi himself being a half-breed he knew better than to judge on one’s species, but honestly no one Yunho had told it to cared, then again maybe he just had good taste in people – however Seonghwa himself had been fairly distant in the last few days after they’d eaten with Mingi.

He was always locked away in his room, coming out of it only to feed himself and still barely looking Yunho’s way then.

For the first two days, Yunho hadn’t said anything. People have bad days, and he knew better than to try to shake someone during one of those. But as days went by, Yunho grew worried.

On day three, Yunho knocks on Seonghwa’s door.

“Hyung?” he calls, ear close to the wood.

He expects a ‘yes?’ or something similar as an answer but instead Seonghwa suddenly shouts “Don’t come in!”

It surprises the human. In any other context he would think he caught his housemate jerking off or something, but with the cold shoulder he has been getting for the past few days, Yunho can’t help but feel like Seonghwa just doesn’t want to see him.

On day five, Yunho texts Seonghwa.

Yunho knows Seonghwa never lies to him. At least he’s sure he never has before, but maybe he shouldn’t be counting their childhood and after all it’s only been a couple months and they’ve never had any type of argument before.

The human thinks about all he’s done in the last days. He did his dishes, didn’t eat any of Seonghwa’s food, didn’t leave any laundry out for too long. The living room is pretty clean – how could it not be with the serpent being the clean freak that he is – and overall, Yunho can’t think of any reason for his friend’s distance. Any but one: Mingi, even if again, Seonghwa didn’t seem to mind his presence at the time.

He starts running over the barbecue night in his mind. Seonghwa had shown no sign of being against the half-elf joining their table. Of course, he wasn’t much of a talker but he seemed comfortable with the conversation, he let Yunho tell Mingi about their childhood, and he hadn’t even pulled his sweater’s collar up to hide his scales like he used to do when they were pre-teens.

After a week, as he traces back in his memory, the human realizes two things:

One, Seonghwa has not only been avoiding Yunho but he also hasn’t left the apartment at all. That’s something he notices because usually when Yunho comes back on Thursdays he’s home alone until Seonghwa comes back from his part-time job, but this Thursday when he comes back he hears the shower running. So unless someone has broken into their place to take a shower, Seonghwa is definitely not at his job.

And two, as a kid Seonghwa also used to disappear for a few days. It hadn’t come back to him until now because at the time, Yunho wasn’t worried. He was too young to really realize his friend had been gone for a few days. Children get sick, and Yunho didn’t think serpents were any different. But as he thinks about it, Seonghwa had never disappeared for more than two or three days, like you would when you’re sick. This time it’s different in the human’s mind.

There’s definitely something off about this and since Yunho can’t seem to put the pieces together himself, he decides he’s going to have to ask Seonghwa to put them together for him. Thus, when he hears the water stream stop, he walks to the bathroom door and waits for it to open.

Yunho doesn’t wait very long because only a few quick minutes later, the door opens. It opens on the serpent, his hair even darker than usual because of the water on it, the same water that drips from the strands of hair and fall on Seonghwa’s bare chest, making the dark green scales on his ribs glisten under the sunlight coming from the bathroom window. Yunho figures that Seonghwa must have expected to be alone in the apartment too because the only thing keeping his decency is a towel wrapped around his waist. Which explains why he was so quick to leave the bathroom.

“What are you doing here?” Seonghwa asks, surprised.

“I– I should be the one asking this!” the human retorts, defensive. “You’re supposed to be— Oh my Gods what is happening to your face?”

Too focused on the scales he had never seen before – how could you blame him, they look so splendid – he hadn’t noticed the other clear thing around the serpent’s appearance: his skin. His usually pale, smooth and perfect skin had a grey tone and looked flaky. Yunho’s eyes scan Seonghwa all over, and his eyes grow wide as he realizes Seonghwa’s skin is peeling off.

Seonghwa rarely blushes. Or at least, Yunho has rarely seen him do so, he doesn’t know how accurate his own perspective is when it comes to Seonghwa. Nonetheless, he’s sure he’s never seen this expression on his serpent friend’s face. He goes red and his arm drapes itself across his own chest, his hand on his opposite shoulder in a vain attempt to cover his dry skin. His head drops in what Yunho would associate with shame, something he rarely experiences himself and is oh so sad to witness in others. Especially Seonghwa. Seonghwa, a serpent – a species associated with pride so often – Seonghwa whom Yunho associates with perfection from his soft but sculpted face to his body shaped by the Gods, by the way his eyes shine the same green as his beautiful scales and every other thing that makes him the Perfect Man. His housemate is basically what Yunho associates to the word ‘supermodel’. And yet, he’s ashamed of— What exactly is it that he’s ashamed of?

“It’s called moulting.” Seonghwa says so low the human barely catches it. “You know how snakes shed their skin every so often? Well, serpents are no exception.”

Of all the things Yunho could say, the only thing that leaves his mouth in that moment is “Oh.”

The reaction – or lack of, really – sends Seonghwa in an embarrassed ramble. “And I know it looks disgusting, no one wants to see dry skin peeling off my face. And not only that but it itches so bad and all I can do is wait until my whole body has created the new layer of skin. The worst part is the scales, Oh Gods the scales—”

“Is that why you’ve been avoiding me for a week?” Yunho cuts the serpent’s incoherent word-vomit, making him look into his eyes. Yunho notices the wetness of them, and it makes his heart ache. “Is that why you locked yourself in your room and didn’t speak to me? Because your skin was like that?”

Seonghwa opens his mouth, closes it, and opens it again before deciding against saying anything more and nodding instead, biting his lip lightly – it makes his fang poke into it harder and Yunho wonders for a microsecond if it hurts.

The human suddenly starts laughing. Not a mocking laugh, not a someone-said-something-funny laugh, but the kind of laugh that comes from nerves suddenly unbundling, it makes him feel so much lighter. However, his laughter doesn’t last too long: it stops when Yunho steps forward and hugs Seonghwa around the shoulders lightly, ignoring how his tee absorbs the remaining water on his hyung’s chest.

“I was so worried,” he tells a very confused Seonghwa when he backs away, “I thought I’d done something wrong! Or that you were sick or something.”

“I– I’m sorry I made you feel that way...”

Yunho shakes his head, dropping his hands off the other’s shoulders. “No it’s alright. I just wish you hadn’t. I wish you felt comfortable enough around me not to hide because of some dry skin.” As if punctuating his words, he catches a flake off Seonghwa’s cheek, dropping it to the ground like it was simply a bit of dust – he’ll clean it off later. “You don’t need to feel ashamed, hyung, especially around me. A few days of dryness can’t compare to every other day’s perfection.” He gives his friend a kind smile, which Seonghwa returns.

Yunho didn’t expect any kind of reply so he walks away towards his room, but he does hear Seonghwa thanking him under his breath. He hopes it means progress.

* * *

“What do you think?”

Yunho raises his head, letting out a hum. He gets a scoff back.

“Did you listen to anything I just said?”

“Uhhh— Half of it? I’m sure you said the word ‘cook’ at some point.”

“Yunho we’re literally in the supermarket of course I talked about cooking at some point.” Seonghwa says wryly. To an outsider it might sound mean or cold, but Yunho knows better. He knows that this is Seonghwa just being playfully annoyed at the human’s antics.

“what i basically asked was: is me cooking dumpling soup and kimbap this week alright with you?”

Yunho nods his head with more enthusiasm than he’d shown the rest of the whole grocery shopping trip. One of the best things Yunho had found out after moving in with the serpent, is that he loved cooking. He wasn’t the best cook Yunho had ever met, but it was still nice to have a few homemade meals a week, which changed him from eating basically just carbs – in various shapes, noodles, rice, bread, but still carbs – unhealthy habit he’d started to develop when he had moved to Seoul. Of course there were a lot more amazing things about his housemate but cooking’s importance wasn’t to be underestimated.

“Great so now we’ll just stock up on everything else, then!” Seonghwa says with a smile, and parts way with Yunho, each of them heading for their own goal – they’d distributed the choice of brands on different foods, for example Yunho gets to choose noodles since he seemed to know everything about them, and Seonghwa takes care of fresh fruits and vegetables – they also pick up their own personal things like snacks, shampoo, lube or anything they need and don’t share.

They never talk a lot when they’re grocery shopping together. It had been a struggle at the beginning but they’d quickly found the most efficient way to do the shopping and were too busy following their plan to actually walk around and talk. Even once they meet back at checkout, they don’t speak. They simply pay, put out everything in bags and leave.

On the way back however, they’re more chatty. Yunho suspects Seonghwa keeps his mouth closed in crowds to avoid risking anyone seeing his fangs and thinking he’s a vampire, or anyone actually knowing he’s a serpent and giving him a black look. Yunho can’t exactly understand, being a human, but he lets Seonghwa do without commenting. It’s not his place and if Seonghwa is happy like that, he’s happy too.

* * *

As time brought them closer to the end of the semester and thus, to exam season, Yunho and Seonghwa decided that it would be good for both of them to set a studying schedule. Three days a week they would sit down at the living room’s table and work or study for two hours together. Just the two of them, even though they weren’t in the same year nor even studying in the same departments, but they appreciated the fact that it would set a focused mood, and they wouldn’t feel lonely as they could always talk with each other.

This night, as every other study night, their phones were disconnected from the internet to reduce distractions, and Seonghwa was reading the same paragraph of a book he was studying for class for the nth time. For some reason he couldn’t understand that paragraph and it frustrated him. Not that Yunho was more qualified to read a book on the history of fashion, but maybe a second pair of eyes could help.

“Hey Yunho,” Seonghwa started, looking up, “could you—”

Yunho has his head dropped on his arm, resting on the table, his other arm is limp, extended in front of him, a pen menacing to fall from his hand to the ground from the side of the table. His slow and regular breathing fans against his notes in front of him and make them lightly rise and fall in silence.

Seonghwa huffs, but he can’t help the smile that grows on his face.

“Yunho?” he tries, not loud enough to wake Yunho up if he had fallen asleep and wasn’t just dozing off.

And indeed asleep, Yunho makes no sound, and doesn’t move an inch. Seonghwa props his chin on his hand, simply looking at peaceful Yunho, a small smile at his lips.

For a few seconds Seonghwa doesn’t move, and maybe it turns into a few minutes as his own eyelids start to feel heavy, but he’s startled awake when Yunho’s pen finally hits the ground. The serpent gets up and walks to Yunho’s side. He grabs the human’s arm and tries to tug, but it seems that Yunho is both fast asleep and too heavy for a tired Seonghwa to lift up. The movement does make Yunho stir a bit and speak words Seonghwa can’t make out as they’re mumbled with a cheek squished against his arm, which causes something to squeeze inside the latter.

Seonghwa considers waking his housemate up but knowing how little sleep he’s gotten in the last few days he decides against it, and instead goes to Yunho’s bedroom. He grabs his blanket and turns to head back out, but he notices something on the bedside table that hadn’t been there last time he’d been in the room. There’s a frame with a picture inside it, a photography of two boys smiling at the camera. The taller of the two looks like he hasn’t seen the sun in months, his jet black hair hiding his eyes a little, he looks shy but happy, his grass-stained clothes barely hiding green-ish scales. The other is smiling so wide, his hair is like his clothes: a total mess. They’re holding hands. The memory of that day comes back to Seonghwa with a bittersweet taste as it was only a few days before he moved away. The serpent had never gotten the time to tell his friend he was going, but he’s so glad that Yunho had never held that against him.

 _Yunho, right_. Seonghwa puts the picture back in its spot and goes back to the living room, wrapping the blanket around the human. He puts a gentle kiss on his forehead before letting out a yawn and heading to his own room to get some well-needed sleep.

* * *

Yunho can feel it running happily in his veins, and his head feels at the same time really light thanks to the alcohol he and Seonghwa had been sharing, and really heavy, weighted by the skincare product applied on his face. He lets out loud giggles at something the older says – something that he forgets a few seconds later – they make his body shake a little, the cocktail in his glass licking dangerously at the sides of it, menacing to spill everywhere on Yunho’s lap.

It’s Friday and the roommates had decided to stay in to do a spa slash self-care boys’ night, but what’s a Friday night without a glass of alcohol or two, or maybe five but who’s counting really? Yunho had learned a couple of cocktail recipes from Jongho – you know, the boyfriend that had made Hongjoong move out and enabled him to move in with Seonghwa, he really has to thank the guy for it – Jongho, who is actually a bartender on the weekends, Yunho, who just had to test them out, and Seonghwa, who was more than willing to try with him. He grimaced at Yunho’s drinks a few times, saying they were more like shots than anything else, before deciding that the fourth version of the drink was pretty good, and pouring them both generous glasses.

They settled on their couch side by side, wearing comfortable clothing, applying the products to their skin and to the other’s if they needed help. It was more Seonghwa that needed help though, as he’d never really done any skincare since he doesn’t actually really need to but Yunho insisted he do it with him because it was less fun doing it alone.

Suddenly Yunho sits up, startling Seonghwa who looks at him like he’s grown a pink horn right in the middle of his forehead. Not that it has never happened to anyone before, but it would still greatly surprise Seonghwa.

“I want pizza,” he exclaims.

“Congratulations?” Seonghwa snorts at the triumphant tone laced in Yunho’s words. “Isn’t that going to, like– cancel out the effects of the...” he gestures around his face at the mask and creams and other things Yunho told him to put on “...the stuff? You know, since grease is bad for your skin?”

Yunho rolls his eyes and huffs, his lips now in a pout. “I want pizza, I don’t care about the a– uh, the effects or whatever! I just care that I’m hungry and pizza sounds really good right now!”

“If you don’t care about your skin why are we doing this?” Seonghwa frowns.

Yunho falls back against the couch with a child-like whine and turns to his side to look at Seonghwa. “It’s to, like, prevent the effects or something, I don’t know! Stop trying to do philosophy and order us pizza, hyung, please?”

It’s Seonghwa’s turn to pout, but in a semi-offended manner. “Wh– Philo–? Why me?” he says in a high voice Yunho only ever hears when the older one's drunk, when his mature and elegant wall relaxes a little.

“Because you’re the oldest you have to take care of me!”

“I’m barely a year older than you, that makes no sense, Yunho.”

Yunho sighs and decides to pull out the big guns: all pout and puppy eyes, he asks again, “pleaaaaaaase? Pretty please?”

Seonghwa raises a brow at first but the more Yunho turns into that emoji he always uses in his texts where he asks something too, the less Seonghwa finds it in himself to turn him down. Finally – after around ten seconds – he sighs and rolls his eyes, not without a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth, grabbing his phone from the table.

“Fine.”

“Yes!” Yunho throws his fist in the air in victory, before giving him the list of the stuff he wants on his pizza.

When the doorbell rings, Yunho had almost forgotten about the pizza. He was still hungry but wasn’t thinking too much as he was listening to Seonghwa complain about someone in his fashion workshop wasting too much fabric or something like that, but the resonating sound pulls him out of his concentration and he almost runs to the door. Since ordering the food, they’d taken the face masks off and put blackheads strips on their noses, but Yunho doesn’t care what he looks like to open the door to the delivery person, alcohol or not.

When he pulls the handle and greets the person with a smile, he’s a little taken aback. The guy’s pretty handsome. He’s pretty, too. Tall, handsome features, piercing eyes and dark hair framing his face. He looks human, but Yunho has learned not to trust first glances, especially not in his current state.

“Hi,” he says, his voice suddenly sounding almost sulky. It’s not his fault if he likes flirting and that he guy looks like the perfect victim for his stupid jokes.

“Hi,” the guy says back, chuckling at Yunho’s funny appearance. “One Margherita and one calzone?”

“Are you the delivery guy? Cause you– uh– I forgot the joke, oh my God… Yeah, that’s for me, here’s for you.” He hands the bills as he grabs the boxes.

The guy shakes his head with a light laugh, ignoring the failed pick up line. “Good evening, sir.”

“Yep, bye!” Yunho says before closing the door and walking back to the living room where Seonghwa welcomes him with a judging face. “What?” Yunho deadpans.

“This was the worst attempt at flirting I’ve ever seen, and I didn’t even really see it. But it sure sounded bad.”

Yunho rolls his eyes as he sits again and opens the boxes for them to share but he smiles, because it’s true, it was pretty pitiful. “I had to try, he was like… Exactly my type.”

Seonghwa scoffs as he grabs a slice. “Really? Didn’t know you had a type.”

[ ](https://twitter.com/miinfai/status/1261332498849705984)

“I don’t really, but I have an idea of what a perfect man looks like to me.” He takes a slice too, and takes a bite to punctuate his sentence.

“Is that so?”

“Mhm-hm– He was like almost as tall as me,” Yunho starts to explain, his words munched between pizza bites, “his hair looked really smooth and stuff, it was black and a little longer than mine and… Ah I don’t remember. He was like super hot, though.”

There’s a look in Seonghwa’s eyes Yunho doesn’t really understand, and is too drunk to try to decipher, as he says “reminds me of someone I know.”

“You do? You’ll have to introduce him to me, maybe he’s delivery dude.”

Seonghwa chuckles as he shakes head, taking another bite of his slice. “Sure.”

They stop talking for a few minutes, simply enjoying the actually pretty good pizza from the place that opened a few weeks before and that Yunho had taken the flier for when people were handing them out on campus. He still likes their usual spot better, but this one’s cheaper and that’s not negligible when the day they have to pay the rent is coming more sooner than later.

All the talk about his type makes Yunho want to know more. “We’ve never really talked about our exes,” he muses before licking the tomato sauce off his finger.

Seonghwa coughs a little on the bite he had been swallowing, his face getting a little red from the lack of air. “Why now?” he asks once he’s caught his breath again.

Yunho shrugs.

“I don’t have many,” Seonghwa sighs, “I dated a few people back in high school, even San for like two weeks before we realized it was dumb to date just because we’re both serpents, especially since we can’t really have children anyway,” he laughs at the memory, “but I don’t know, none of them really made an impression on me. Good memories, less good ones, but nothing out of the ordinary.” He shrugs before taking more pizza and throwing the question back to Yunho.

The thing is that Yunho has dated a few people too, but unlike Seonghwa, he has lots of stories – funny anecdotes and weird ones alike – and he’s very talkative so once he’s started telling them to Seonghwa, he doesn’t stop, although Seonghwa doesn’t seem to mind, he listens attentively like he always does, a smile on his face. 

* * *

It’s hard to finish practice for his end of semester dance routine late at night, time nearing nine already, especially when he has been at it since ten in the morning, and this day has been the same as a dozen of other days before that. But Yunho loves dancing, and even if the stairs leading up to the apartment are killing his thighs, he keeps going because he can’t die before he’s done the performance. This choreography is his baby, of course he’s going to practice it over and over again until it’s perfect. And maybe it is, now, but it didn’t take him nothing to get to this point.

Yunho lets out a sigh when he pulls himself up on the final stair, and whispers ‘home sweet home’ while turning the key in the door. He pushes it open, and is welcomed in by delicious aromas . He inhales them in as he closes the door again, getting out of his shoes without thinking about it – without putting them perfectly in their spot either, which Seonghwa might scold him for later – and walking towards the kitchen, where the heavenly smells come from. There, he sees his roommate at the stove, his apron on and concentration on his face.

“Honey I’m home,” Yunho jokes as he leans over the counter.

Seonghwa turns his head and smiles at him, welcoming. “I thought you were coming back a little later, it’s not ready just yet.”

“You were going to wait for me?” the human says with raised brows.

“Not exactly. I actually made this for you.”

“Oh?” The serpent looks a little sheepish as he keeps his eyes on the kimchi stir-fried rice. “You… did all this for me?” Yunho gestures at the many different dishes on the table, some done and some not, the kimbap not cut yet but there’s soup covered by a lid to keep it warm, condensation licking at the top in droplets.

“I know there’s a lot but I wanted to do a lot of different things since I had all day free, I thought we could just eat the leftovers during exam revision season since we won’t get as much time to cook.” Seonghwa explains. “Sorry the kitchen is a bit of a mess but– hey!” He bats the human’s hand away from a plate of vegetables. “No snacking before you shower, you smell all the way from here!”

Yunho laughs and throws his hands up in surrender, walking backwards to spare Seonghwa of the smell. “Okay okay, I’m going now, sorry I disturbed your pretty nose.”

Seonghwa rolls his eyes but he smiles as Yunho walks to the bathroom, shouting at his back. “Take your time! It’ll be ready in twenty minutes or so I think!”

Yunho throws a thumbs up before closing the door.

The warm water massages his shoulders, and Yunho tries to let go of the tension in his body that the stretches haven’t gotten rid of. As told to, he takes his time.

Yunho reaches for his shampoo, but no matter how hard he shakes the bottle, he can’t get anything from it anymore, and he sighs, taking Seonghwa’s instead. Usually, Yunho always has a spare bottle of shampoo but he hadn’t had the time to get a new one as he’d been busy with practice. But Seonghwa’s shampoo is good too, and as he massages it onto his scalp he realizes how much it smells like him. It’s something he’s never really paid attention to before, how much he associates the freshness green tea and the subtle sweetness of flowers to Seonghwa, but as the scent meets his smell buds, it’s just so evident, that is how Seonghwa smells. He chuckles to himself, finding this strange discovery quite satisfying, as he rinses the shampoo out of his hair and continues to clean himself of his busy day’s sweat.

Getting out of the shower feels nice because his body is spent but relaxed, it feels especially nice because today was most probably the last day of his intense practice, and maybe a little something else feels nice, surrounding him in comfort. He puts some clean clothes on and leaves the bathroom to meet Seonghwa back at the kitchen, where the serpent has cleaned up and set the table, everything ready for them to dive in.

Yunho smiles wider than a kid that just found a stash of candy, and eats with more enthusiasm and appetite, too. The warm food feels good, and it tastes even better. Every time Yunho isn’t busy stuffing his mouth, he’s telling Seonghwa how good of a cook he is, and he’s proud of himself when he makes the older blush a little from the cascade of praises.

“Hey hey don’t go so soon!” Seonghwa calls after Yunho when the latter walks towards his room before turning back when he’s called, a questioning look on his face. Seonghwa gestures towards the living area, to which Yunho hadn’t paid attention to since he’d gotten back; but now that he does he can see the diverse blankets and pillows laid on the floor in front of the couch, the table pushed back a little, some sweet snacks on it, the TV ready for them to choose something to watch.

Yunho grins and walks back, giving Seonghwa a quick hug. “You’re the best,” he tells him as he sits down on the covers, hand reaching for the remote.

 _Only for you_ , Seonghwa thinks, but Yunho can’t hear.

After some light banter, they settled on some new comedy movie, something that doesn’t require for Yunho to think too much but will keep him awake too (“You’re too heavy for me to put you in bed and with the state you’re in, you definitely shouldn’t sleep on the floor again” Seonghwa claims, and Yunho reckons that he’s probably right).

They’re about halfway through it now, all tangled in the blankets. Before, their bodies were leaning against each other, shoulders touching, but Yunho opted to drape himself over Seonghwa’s legs instead, holding his head upon his hand with his elbow on some pillow on the other side of the serpent. It’s pretty comfortable for a lazy blanket mountain, and the movie is not that bad either.

The main character and his love interest suddenly fall in a mix-up, and it makes Seonghwa laugh wholeheartedly, he points out how dumb they are for it to happen. And just as suddenly, Yunho turns his head to look at him. He looks at Seonghwa laughing as he pops a sour candy in his mouth, the way his eyes turn to crescents as his mouth spreads widely, the way his chest vibrates with laughter against the human’s shoulder blade. It’s quite a sight.

Seonghwa ends up noticing, and looks down at Yunho too. “What?” he says with a residual smile from the scene on his face.

Yunho shakes his head, and focuses on the movie again.The lead hasn’t caught on with her love interest’s feelings, and no matter how painfully obvious he is to Yunho’s eyes, she disregards it and says he’s just being nice.

“Classic,” Yunho snorts. He can feel Seonghwa’s eyes on him and to meet them, a smile on his face. “What?” he mimics, but the results of this reversed scenario are different. Where Yunho had dismissed him silently and gone back to the movie, Seonghwa tilts his head with a gentle smile, “You’re cute,” he whispers before slowly leaning forward and down to kiss him. _Oh so slowly_ , and yet Yunho doesn’t register it’s happening before their lips connect in a soft touch.

His breath is stolen out of his lungs, and there’s a loud jump in his chest. Oh. _Oh_ . Seonghwa kissed him. Actually, Seonghwa _is kissing him_ . He’s still there, for a fleeting moment, before he pulls back as slowly as he’d come down. Yunho wishes the serpent had spent more time kissing him before leaving speechless like this. _What?_

It takes a moment more for Seonghwa to realize too, but when he does his face starts burning up, the warm color spreading quickly from under the scales on his cheeks to his ear tips and to the rest of his face and neck. He tries to scramble back but with Yunho in his lap and the couch behind him, it’s not effective and all he’s done is shake Yunho out of his haze.

“Yunho– I, I– This– I don’t–” he starts to panic, that much is clear to the human, who strangely stayed very calm. “I shouldn’t have—”

“Why not?” Yunho cuts him. He might have kept his composure, but Yunho is still freaking out internally, his chest warm with all the beating his heart is doing.

The serpent frowns, threading fingers through his jet black hair. “Because– Because you’re my– I should have asked but– I don’t– I don’t know what you feel or– or if you– Fuck I just– I didn’t think–”

Seonghwa is starting to panic and ramble, but Yunho keeps his cool and sits up, turning his back to the TV so he’s facing the older. He brings a hand up to Seonghwa’s neck and gently rubs his thumb under his ear, instinctively. Somehow, it works, and Seonghwa shuts up, taking a breath.

“Did you want to do it?” Yunho asks quietly, hoping he doesn’t sound as shy as he feels.

Seonghwa takes a moment before nodding. “I don’t think I’ve ever really– like, actively thought about it,” the serpent confesses, “but in the moment it just felt… Right.”

Yunho hums, and poses another question. “Do you think you’d want to do it again?”

It’s a strange question to Seonghwa’s ears, it makes him look up at Yunho in slight confusion, but, ever so carefully, he answers this one too. “I think I would, yes.” It’s almost a whisper, quiet and gentle as if Seonghwa is scared of his own words. But as they leave his mouth it’s like it’s relieving, and it feels just so _right_ to say them that he continues. “I would like that very much, every day if possible. I don’t want anything more from you than a little more… Proximity?”

The words leave Yunho looking for air again. However, it’s Seonghwa that leaves Yunho breathless.

He’s always known the man was gorgeous – it was never out of the question, more like a fact already well installed in Yunho’s mind – and he also knew that he was so kind, and smart, and so much more, he knew all that and he’d never given a second thought about how he felt about him. But somehow, those feelings were so much more than he had thought. So maybe it’s just always been like this between them, or it grew so naturally that Yunho can’t trace back the origins, but it doesn’t exactly matter what was because what Yunho wants to know is how things will be.

“I’d be cool with proximity,” he blurts out. It doesn’t sound as smart as he would have wished it to be, but it works. It makes a beautiful smile bloom on Seonghwa’s lips, his fangs peeking behind his pretty pink lips. Yunho looks back and forth between them and the dark green of his eyes, and he realizes how far he’s fallen already, without even knowing he’d left the ground. “More than cool,” he whispers.

Seonghwa seems surprised at first, but he doesn’t question it, like he doesn’t question what he himself feels either. And so he kisses him, and even if it’s slow again, this time it holds their newly found purpose. He holds Yunho’s cheek and waist, and presses his lips delicately to the human’s, careful not to break their moment although he’s not sure anything could break it as it’s like it has always been there, waiting for its moment. The moment is now, and it moves between their mouths, speed and pressure increasing and the boys realize that there’s a lot of proximity they’ve missed out on. They explore each other in a way they never had before, finding something they didn’t even know they needed until now. It’s slow and it’s sweet and they both smell like Seonghwa’s shampoo.

It doesn’t last forever, but Yunho knows they’ll have plenty of time to continue later, when he doesn’t feel like his body is a sore stone, and when he doesn’t feel like if he closes his eyes for too long he’ll fall asleep on the spot. They part, and rest their foreheads together, catching their breaths and taking the time to appreciate the small touches, the feeling of the other’s skin under their fingers.

“Do you want to sleep in my bed tonight?” Seonghwa suggests, unsure.

“Yes, please,” Yunho replies with a smile.

They clean up quickly before making their way to Seonghwa’s bed, soon settling in a comfortable tangle of limbs. Yunho’s head rests on Seonghwa’s bare chest, hooked under his chin, and he watches his ribs rise and fall as the older breaths, tracing the shapes of his scales on his skin, their smooth texture soft under his finger pads.

“Did you use my shampoo?” Seonghwa finally remarks, nose buried in the human’s now dry hair.

Yunho chuckles. “Yeah, I’m out of mine I hope it’s not an issue.”

“Mhm no worries, you can use it whenever you want if I get to call you my boyfriend.”

A scoff leaves Yunho’s mouth as he looks up to the other, “do I also get to call you mine?”

“Depends, do I get a goodnight kiss?”

Yunho smiles and kisses him quickly. It feels odd, still, but he must admit he quite likes it.

“That settled, then,” Seonghwa adds. “Goodnight, Yunho.”

“Goodnight,” Yunho hums. He lets himself drift into deep slumber, arms secured around Seonghwa.

**Author's Note:**

> tysm for reading, hope u liked it! again, go check out tracy's part: [♡](https://twitter.com/miinfai/status/1261332498849705984)  
> thank you to tracy for doing this with me, and thank you to [lix](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sugatunes/) for beta-reading!
> 
> talk to me:  
> [twitter](http://twitter.com/atzplay)  
> [curiouscat](http://curiouscat.me/alpacats)


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